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Hungary Reign of Leopold II
As the Habsburgs gained control of the country, the
ministers
of Leopold I argued that he should rule Hungary as
conquered
territory. One even said Vienna should first make the
Hungarians
beggars, then Catholics, and then Germans. At the Diet of
Pressburg in 1687, the emperor promised to observe all of
Hungary's laws and privileges. Hereditary succession of
the
Habsburgs was recognized, however, and the nobles' right
of
resistance was abrogated. In 1690 Leopold began
redistributing
lands freed from the Turks. Protestant nobles and all
other
Hungarians thought disloyal by the Habsburgs lost their
estates,
which were given to foreigners. Vienna controlled
Hungary's
foreign affairs, defense, tariffs, and other functions,
and it
separated Tranyslvania from Hungary, treating it as a
separate
imperial territory.
The repression of Protestants and the land seizures
embittered the Hungarians, and in 1703 a peasant uprising
sparked
an eight-year national rebellion aimed at casting off the
Habsburg yoke. Disgruntled Protestants, peasants, and
soldiers
united under Ferenc Rakoczi, a Roman Catholic magnate who
could
hardly speak Hungarian. Most of Hungary soon supported
Rakoczi,
and the joint Hungarian-Transylvanian Diet voted to annul
the
Habsburgs' right to the throne. Fortunes turned against
the
rebels, however, when the Habsburgs made peace in the West
and
turned their full force against Hungary. The rebellion
ended in
1711, when moderate rebel leaders concluded the Treaty of
Szatmar, in which the Hungarians gained little except the
emperor's agreement to reconvene the Diet and to grant an
amnesty
for the rebels.
Data as of September 1989
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